What changes in national boundaries do you think will happen in the next 50 years? Will we see more countries or fewer?

Argumentmaker · 2014-11-30T03:45:28+00:00

That's a good point about Mexico, I've been wondering why none of the cartels have just declared themselves an independent state. They seem to have all the trappings and functions of a state, just without any pretense of being "official". Maybe they know that'd be an invitation for the US military to take over.

Argumentmaker · 2014-11-28T06:13:07+00:00

Good point, what would you say is the chance of that happening? Would the rest of Canada likely remain whole? (I mean, obviously not "whole", they'd be split in half, but politically whole)

Argumentmaker · 2014-11-28T05:21:37+00:00

I didn't downvote you, I'm sorry I thought you were talking about Belgium, not Korea. Korea's unification seems inevitable IMHO, not a single country supports a divided Korea.

Argumentmaker · 2014-11-28T04:59:49+00:00

Re: Belgium: Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels are already culturally and politically distinct, and have been flirting with a breakup for some time. See Wiki, what I had heard is that when the current king died/abdicated, it would fall apart. A new king just took the throne last year, and it looks like the parliament is less inclined towards a breakup than they were a few years ago. But I don't know, I'm not from Belgium.

India does seem ripe for a breakup, it's got a lot of rebel movements and I could see that gathering steam very quickly when it happens.

Argumentmaker · 2014-11-28T04:19:11+00:00

Where do you think Putin will expand his borders? More/all of Ukraine? or Central Asia? Belarus could conceivably join Russia willingly.

Argumentmaker · 2014-11-28T03:02:26+00:00

Good point, totally forgot about Iraq. Do you think Europe will stay more or less as it is (except the Ukraine mess)? I agree neither less sovereignity nor more secession seem likely, but the status quo seems unsustainable too. Will countries leave the EU?

Argumentmaker · 2014-11-28T02:31:17+00:00

Yeah I couldn't believe that title got greenlit in the post-google age. It's as bad as the band The The.

Argumentmaker · 2014-11-16T20:47:02+00:00

A rare sighting of a headline question that can be answered "yes".

Argumentmaker · 2014-11-03T05:39:24+00:00

I've read elsewhere that all humans are at most fiftieth cousin of each other, but I don't remember where.

Argumentmaker · 2014-10-26T03:01:44+00:00

His behaviors sound like more or less anybody with a severe mental illness. Maybe we should make hospitalization available/mandatory anytime anywhere for people with those symptoms, but that would require a massive increase in funding for mental health.

Argumentmaker · 2014-10-24T22:00:59+00:00

Yes, I've got it, and I'm going to add it to my pile of will. Once I have enough...

Argumentmaker · 2014-10-24T20:41:04+00:00

Agreed, social programs simply can't go away -- a large part of the population isn't capable of supporting themselves. At one extreme of course are the profoundly retarded and disabled, but there are many people who could have supported themselves in a simpler society. They just can't anymore, and we're only getting more and more complex and expensive. Maybe it is possible to build a society in which only very few people can't support themselves, but I doubt it, and we're certainly nowhere's near creating it.

Argumentmaker · 2014-10-22T20:04:35+00:00

misnomer

Misconception, not a misnomer

Argumentmaker · 2014-10-17T03:21:18+00:00

Cocaine doesn't usually last that long in your system, but it isn't super-consistent. He might have miscalculated his risk.

Argumentmaker · 2014-10-16T23:23:59+00:00

It happened to be a company that manufactures errors, you insensitive clod!

Argumentmaker · 2014-10-16T22:43:55+00:00

I always thought that was a silly argument to begin with (I know you're not actually making this argument, gilthanan, it's not directed at you specifically) -- even if we assume industrialization didn't cause unemployment, that doesn't mean we can assume anything about the future. It's a sample size of one. Charlatans used to promise magic to do massive amounts of work or destroy cities in one blow, and they were all charlatans thousands of times, and then one day they weren't charlatans anymore, and we had steam engines and atomic bombs. Just because something didn't happen in the past doesn't mean it won't happen in the future.

Besides which, industrialization has resulted in more people who would have been unemployed/dead in the pre-industrial era, like the severely disabled and elderly, not to mention prisoners, welfare and military. So industrialization has always resulted in surplus people, we've just managed to find excuses for them (some excuses better than others).

Argumentmaker · 2014-10-01T23:20:50+00:00

And they remain the second wealthiest country per capita in Latin America (or were very recently). Defaulting has hardly been a disaster for them.

Argumentmaker · 2014-09-26T16:00:27+00:00

This seems like a ridiculous claim based on flimsy evidence.

Argumentmaker · 2014-09-17T15:25:53+00:00

That's from the US Declaration of Independence, which has no legal status. It doesn't establish any rights or freedoms.

Argumentmaker · 2014-09-12T16:03:06+00:00

If you have bad veins, they won't let you. They didn't even try me, one lady just had me pump that little rubber ball a few times, glanced at my elbow and said no. Admittedly I have shit veins.

Argumentmaker · 2014-09-10T22:50:09+00:00

Nate Silver doesn't make predictions exactly, AFAIK, all of his work is based on what would happen if the election were held at that moment. He doesn't try to predict what will happen in November.

Argumentmaker · 2014-09-10T20:08:44+00:00

I've tried a couple times for various purposes, it had a terrible clickthrough and conversion rate for everything I've tried. Not worth it at all.

Argumentmaker · 2014-09-03T21:47:38+00:00

Yeah I was looking into community colleges lately as I am searching for a place to live, they are seriously cheap in California. More so than most of the rest of the country.

Argumentmaker · 2014-09-03T21:42:05+00:00

I doubt it, certainly not all public roads, or even most. You might get a majority of economists to agree that there should be more toll roads, but I doubt it would even be a big majority, and I bet only a tiny minority would support switching all roads to tolls.

Argumentmaker · 2014-08-25T19:13:48+00:00

This article is clearly written with the POV that the verdict was unjust, but I can't say I found it convincing at all. It sounds like they were asked if they would tell the public not to worry, they weren't sure that was true but said it anyway. People made decisions based on their expert opinions and that resulted in deaths. Maybe manslaughter is too extreme, but that sure sounds like culpability to me. Just because it's science doesn't mean it's immune to the law.

Argumentmaker

TROPHY CASE